The original chorus to “Don’t Stop Believin’” included the chords, the melody, and the lyrics “Don’t stop believing, hold on to that feeling.” I didn’t know what the next line was going to be at that point – but I knew the melody would go up at the end to complete the phrase. The bass line was also different at first, with just a driving, eighth note figure throughout.

So I brought the chorus into rehearsal. At that time, we had a warehouse that we practiced in, so we played the chords over and over again as a band, looking for places the song could go. [Singer] Steve Perry liked the chords to the chorus so much, his idea was to use them for the entire song, breaking them down to sing the verses over. So we started exploring the chords, and Perry said to me, “Instead of just playing the chords, give me one of your rolling, signature piano riffs.” At that time, I had just left the band The Babys, where we had had a song called “Turn And Walk Away” that had a rolling piano intro. Perry was looking for something that captured that side of my musical personality, so I broke the chords up into an eighth note riff, which became the song’s signature piano part. Because we were using the same chords for the song’s verse as the chorus, we needed to make the verse stand out. So we disguised the chords in the arpeggiated piano riff you hear today. Perry and I loved classic soul artists like Marvin Gaye, who could write great songs with just four chords repeating over and over again. That was the goal we set for ourselves.

Perry then said ‘Let’s keep the chords, but come-up with a different bass line.” The goal was to make each section of the song unique. So Neal Schon started experimenting with the bass line, and came-up with a new one over my moving piano part, which he showed to Ross . Ross had a really unique bass sound, almost like that of a cello player. He tweaked his amp and added a flanger to get his parts to really bark.

Perry then started looking for a melody to sing over the verse that would take the same chords into more soulful territory. We hadn’t crafted the lyrics yet, but he was humming what would eventually become the song’s soaring melody. It sounded great to all of us.

Next, Perry decided that we would play another verse, because the song felt like it needed to develop further. While we were playing the chords as the re-intro to the second verse, Neal started playing what would become his signature, sixteenth-note, ‘going down the train tracks’ guitar arpeggio, which he played double time over my eighth note piano part.

After the second verse, the song felt like it needed to go to the IV chord. But instead of just playing a standard IV chord on the B-Section, Neal had the idea to play the V chord over the IV chord bass note, rocking back and forth between that and the IV chord. I doubled Neal’s guitar part on keyboards, using an ARP Omni string patch through a Roland Dimension D chorus, added to fatten the keyboard sound up. Perry picked-up on Neal’s alternating chordal figure, eventually using the same melody notes for the B-Section lyrics “Strangers” and “Waiting.” This added an element of tension and release, played by the entire band.

At this point I said to Perry, “Are we going to bring the chorus in now?” And he replied, “No, we’re gonna save it.”It was his instincts to keep building the song, saving the chorus for the end. We kept refining the song, with Steve Smith adding his signature, world music-esque drum beat, and Neal contributing his soaring guitar solo as well.

The next day, after we had decided on a band arrangement of the song, I went to Perry’s house and we worked on the lyrics together. He sang and played bass while we both listened back to the tapes from the day before. I said to him, “This sounds like a train going down the tracks.” Perry agreed, and we started looking for clues to tell the song’s story. I said to him, “I love the song ‘Midnight Train To Georgia.’ What if this is the midnight train going anywhere?” And his eyes lit up. I continued. “This could be like a “Jack & Diane” story, of a guy and a girl.” We knew we were on to something.

Later, Perry and I would craft the B-Section lyrics out of our time spent cruising up and down the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, with its endless menagerie of wandering souls. I would think to myself “Where did all these people come from, and what in the hell are they doing here?” They would eventually become the “Streetlight People” in the chorus, completing the song that would change the course of my life forever.

JC: We're going to start on this album called “Escape.” I had played hardly a note with them. We jammed some in the clubs, and then I'm asked to make this record. ... (Steve) Perry looks at me and says the producer wants one more tune.

And I’m like, "Well, we already gave him 17." And he goes, "I don’t care, we need one more. What do you got? Go home and see what you got. I know you've got something."

Pressure's on. I go home, and there's my little Wurlitzer piano sitting there, the same one I wrote “Open Arms” and all this stuff on. I go in my book and I see it, "Don’t Stop Believin'."

BH: Did you know right then?

JC: I said, “Steve Perry will sing this. Now, John you've got to write some kind of chorus where he can soar."

... All I had was “Don’t stop believin’, hold on to that feeling.”

I went (back to the band) with those two lines. That’s it. And the chords! Perry said, "Man, those chords are great.' ... He just had an engineer's (mindset). ... This was a much different situation than (writing) "Faithfully." This was an improv by all. ... We still haven’t played a chorus yet. And I kept looking at Steve: "Chorus now?" And he goes, "Oh no." So we haven’t sung it yet. And this was all Steve leading the thing, being Steve. Because he’s just so musical! I mean because he played bass and drums, and he understood. He was like a real mechanic, understood how all the parts fit. ... So here he is yodeling this stuff. And all we got is this yodel and this great track.

I take it home on my cassette. I go to his house the next day, the very next day, in his little flat, and then we got to write the lyrics. I always listened to what he scatted for clues. ... I said, "Well, it sounds like (he sang) 'lonely world.' That (word) sounds like 'anywhere.' "

I said, "What if it's like 'Jack and Diane,' you know? Kind of, "Just a small-town girl." He goes, "Livin’ in a lonely world."

Now we're in the movie, and the movie goes on and on and on. I said, "I'll tell you where the location is. This sounds like Sunset Boulevard in the '70s, where I lived, and it sounds like Friday night." I was explaining to them how everybody would cruise up and down the boulevard. I mean, the hustlers, the dreamers, the producers, the actors, the actresses, the wannabe starlets, the wannabe anybodies were all on Sunset, cruising, driving, looking for their hookup, their something.

What a nice interview...I love to hear the background stories of a songs creation..My favorite so far is No More Cryin... many portions of lyrics I can relate to.. and the outtro is so beautiful it mesmerises me.. looking forward to 10/5

Last edited by JustMyStyle on Wed Sep 26, 2018 7:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

What a nice interview...I love to hear the background stories of a songs creation..My favorite so far is No More Cryin... many portions of lyrics I can relate to.. and the outro is so beautiful it mesmerises me.. looking for to 10/5

I love the outtro to "No More Cryin'" too. So many feels in that song.

I really wouldn't have labeled it as a "Making of..." event. It really was more about how he got to the place where he felt like making music again. Which was great to hear. I'd still love to hear more about the nuts and bolts of making the album..but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Onestepper wrote:I really wouldn't have labeled it as a "Making of..." event. It really was more about how he got to the place where he felt like making music again. Which was great to hear. I'd still love to hear more about the nuts and bolts of making the album..but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Agree. And for the most part, this covered what we as fans have heard, watched & read numerous times during these past few weeks. But for those still playing catch up, it was heartwarming.

No Complainin', I just hope this was only part 1, and that there will be parts 2, 3 etc where Steve shares the background to all the other songs too.

Most of All sounds like it will be a real tearjerker.

"To the ones who've lost their most of all.Many years won't heal, when tears still call their most of all."